Review – Axial SCX10 Jeep Wrangler G6 Kit

THE Axial SCX10 Jeep Wrangler G6 Review

Axial Recon G6 events are all the rage right now, but they aren’t just for the hardest of the hardcore scalers, they are for everyone. You won’t find a bunch of people stressing out over the win, what you will find is a bunch of guys out having fun with their scale rc trucks. The latest machine from Axial is their SCX10 Jeep Wrangler G6 Edition, a machine for competing in G6 events or for simply having a good time on a trail run. Is the G6 edition a good trail machine? Is it worthy of the G6 designation? More importantly, is it worth your hard earned cash? Click that “Read More” button to find out…

What’s Needed To Complete: The Axial Jeep Wrangler G6 comes as a kit so you’ll need to supply a steering servo, a speedo, a motor, a radio system, a battery, a battery charger, build tools, and paint for the lexan body.

Build Quality: Hey, this is a kit, so the build quality is all up to you. The quality of the parts inside the kit looked good and we didn’t have any missing parts.

Set-up Notes: We installed a waterproof Hitec 5646 servo to handle the steering duties. For power we used a Novak Timbuk 2 speedo mated to a Novak Ballistic brushless crawler motor. The Novak system was powered by a TrakPower 2S 6800 lipo battery. For control we used a stock Axial transmitter from our Deadbolt review truck. Todd Claire of Bodyz by TC hooked us up with the sweet paint job.

Turning: Ya know, the G6 shouldn’t turn well. After all, it has a high center of gravity and locked diffs. Surprising it went where it was pointed. Yes, it had some push here and there, but for a crawler it generally goes exactly where you point it.

Crawling: We did some crawling with the G6, but more so we used it in trail driving conditions. If you’ve never been on a trail run, imagine going to your local park and driving your truck on the trails while you walk alongside. Some trails are flat, some have tree roots, some are muddy, there are just all sorts of varied conditions that you might not ever notice just by walking it. The 1.9″ tires and 4wd system did their job on the trail, helping the truck get over and through some pretty gnarly conditions. For a stock, non-modded truck, the G6 held its own on the trail, making it through all the sections that the other trucks were making. There were a few points where the modded trucks got through a bit easier, but that was mainly due to their aftermarket tires. Overall, we feel that you can take the G6 straight from the box and do just fine on just about any trail run.

Jumping: The G6 is a crawler, so did we jump it? Is our name BigSquidRC? Of course we did. While certain hardcore crawlers would probably wince at the thought of jumping their crawler, we think it was truly in the G6 spirit. If you’ve hit a Recon G6 event, they are all about the gnarlier the better for terrain, and sometimes that includes some nasty drop offs in the trail. No, the G6 won’t jump as well as your Slash, but we had a blast getting air with the G6. It responded quickly to trigger input and lands better than we expected from a crawler. Moderate sized jumps are not out of range for the G6 with a proper power system.

Bumps/Whoops: With a very slow top speed you can’t really “pound the whoops” with the Axial G6. Even in a very rough area the big tires and low top speed kept the G6 from ever getting out of shape.

On-Road: Hey, the G6 is made for hardcore off-roading, not for the streets. Yes, you can play with the G6 on pavement, but you’ll soon be looking for rougher areas to get your bash on.

Grass: The 1.9 Axial/Maxxis tires and 4wd mean the G6 can shove through some pretty serious grass areas. If you do a lot of running in grass you won’t have any problems with the G6.

Tires: The Axial/Maxxis tires worked well in a wide variety of conditions. For uber crawling there are better, more grippy, tires on the market, but for general bashing the stockers worked quite well. You could go from mud to snow to pavement to grass and the stock tires provided good grip on each of the surfaces.

Broken Parts: We had our scale guy Doug do the build and he did a great job assembling the truck. Doug is hardcore scaler/crawler guy, so he powered the truck for the part, meaning it topped out at about 5 mph. We didn’t break any parts on our review G6, which was due in part to the low top speed.

Misc Notes:

The build went smooth except for a couple points. The front chassis brace didn’t leave enough clearance for our servo horn so we had to do some Dremel work for it to work without binding. Also, the ring and pinion mesh on our test unit was quite noisy even after being packed with marine grease. Otherwise, life was good with parts quality and the manual was well done.

We were digging the upgrades the G6 came with like the Poison Spider bumper, the aluminum bodied shocks, and threaded aluminum links. Not only do the upgrades help toughen up the rig, they also look sweet and add to its scale realism.

We installed the driveshafts backwards to what is recommended in the manual to protect the exposed splines from rocks.

The battery mount is far forward on the chassis, this is a welcome change. Having more of the weight up front helps a bunch when climbing any steep surface.

As this was a Recon G6 edition we expected a few more things on the truck. One- scale accessories that are mandatory to compete in a G6 event. Two- a winch, or at least a tow rope. G6 events are all about the “HOG/Hand of God” rule, where you aren’t allowed to hand marshal a vehicle. A tow rope is essential at a G6, one should have come on with the truck. Lastly- different tires. Pit Bull is the tire sponsor of the Recon G6 events, it would have been cool to have seen them come stock on the truck.

Were were stoked the G6 Edition was a kit. It allows you to learn (in depth) about the truck while building it. A kit also makes it easy to install hop-ups and do other mods during the build.

Best Mod Under $5: Want to make the G6 perform better on the cheap? Throw on some wheels weights, 3 oz at each end will suffice.

Time To Bash: C Kits are not the fastest way to hit the trail, but our Jeep G6 generally went together quickly.

Workability: B The Wrangler G6 is well laid out and easy to spin wrenches on.

Car Show Rating: B The Maxxis tires and included wheels looked nice and scale. The 2 door body with dovetail rear not only looked good, but was able to squeeze through tight spots on the trail and didn’t need a bunch of trimming for larger tires. Very nice scale realism on the Wrangler G6.

Bash-A-Bility: A We did not break any parts on our G6 test unit.

Fun Factor: B What’s not to like about a serious 4wd off-road machine? It gets up tough climbs like a mountain goat, scoots right through grass, and was a blast to trail drive with.

Handling: C For trail driving the Wrangler G6 is the hot ticket, for general bashing you might want to look elsewhere in the Axial line-up like the EXO buggy. The truck handled well under all sorts of circumstances.

Value: C For $30 more you can get a fully RTR Axial Deadbolt, but then you would be missing out on the upgrades included on the G6.

Parts Availability: B As the popularity of crawling/scaling has exploded we keep seeing more and more Axial parts in local hobby shops.

BigSquid Rating: B- We are huge fans of Parker and the Recon G6 series, we would buy this truck on that fact alone. But even if you’ve never been to one of the events, or even heard of them, the Axial Jeep Wrangler G6 stands on its own as a great trail truck. It’s built to take on the worst trails you can find, and looks great while doing so.